Linda Ronstadt: 1946—: Singer Biography - Began Performing With Family, Abandoned By Group, Began Solo Career, Released Gold And Platinum Albums
million rock copies
Linda Ronstadt: 1946—: Singer.
Linda Ronstadt has released more than 35 albums during a career that has spanned nearly 40 years, with sales topping more than 50 million copies. With a total of 13 platinum albums to her credit, she was the first woman ever to have four consecutive albums sell more than one million copies. Gaining fame by covering popular pop-rock songs, Ronstadt has also delved into opera, mariachi, Afro-Cuban, jazz, big band, and children's lullabies. She is known as one of the premier contemporary interpreters of the rock ballad.
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Ronstadt was born on July 14, 1946, in Tucson, Arizona, and grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood with her sister and two brothers. Her father, who owned a large hardware store, was of Mexican and German descent, and her mother, a housewife, was of German, English, and Dutch descent. Her whole family was musically inclined. Her mother played the ukulele, and her father, who loved to sing h…
The Stone Poneys played at the Troubadour, a popular Los Angeles venue, where Ronstadt was approached by the promoter Henry Cohen to sign as a solo artist. Naively loyal to her band, she refused, but when the band finally split up, Ronstadt signed with Cohen and then convinced him to work with a reunited Stone Poneys band. The band ended up with a contract for three albums. The second album, Everg…
Ronstadt's future began to take shape in 1973, when she signed with Asylum Records. She enlisted the services of producer Peter Asher, formerly of the British pop duo Peter and Gordon, who helped Ronstadt complete her next album, Don't Cry Now. Released in 1973, it became Ronstadt's first widely accepted album, and reached number 45 on the charts. The best-received cut was her…
Ronstadt's 1982 release of Get Closer signaled the closing days of her place at center stage of the pop rock scene. Although still successful, it was her first album in nearly ten years that did not go platinum. Ronstadt's solution to her waning pop popularity was to switch genres completely. She moved from Los Angeles to New York and spent 1980 on stage as Mabel in a Broadway produc…
Ronstadt returned to pop music in 1989 with Cry Like a Rainstorm—Howl Like the Wind,and her reentry into the mainstream was loudly applauded. In his Audio review, Hector La Torre noted, "The more you listen to Cry Like a Rainstorm, the more you realize that of greater importance than Ronstadt's return to pop/rock is the enormous musical development that has taken place in this…
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